1st Gen R53 Cooper S Most liked posts in thread: My 2005 R53 Daily Driver build thread

That move may not be far off. I was already given a layoff notice in December with last day August 14. Not crisis related, just management who needed our department to finish a project and then suddenly pulled the "unexpected funding loss" to terminate the entire group that wasn't useful any longer within their area. I spare you the ugly details, but it is the new way of managing a public university. Getting rid of expensive long term technical staff is the new way of "moving to the cloud" and paying vendors. Problem for me is that these vendors I could easily work for aren't hiring either, plus the one I definitely am qualified to work for is located in Israel with a few offices in New York City. Neither has ever been considered to be on my list of choice locations.

Fast forward to August. I am the only one in the department who is old enough and has spent enough time with the organization to be able to take early retirement, but it isn't a pretty picture once I run the numbers, and they will get worse with the stock market tanking. I may be forced to do this, and when I do, I am getting a measly paycheck that barely covers my monthly mortgage and utilities unless I elect the accelerated payout, which will hurt me for the rest of my life after 62, but it likely is my only option.

Even with that boost, I will have less than 50% of my current income and living in Wisconsin near Madison is expensive. Taxes for a suburban small house are about 5k a year now, heating and cooling isn't cheap, insurance is pretty high, registration for a car is $115 each, fees are astronomical for everything since Walker. Basically, I'd be staying in a state that is mostly too cold, or too hot and humid while paying a premium for the privilege. I only live here because of the job I won't have any longer, so it is the year to finally make the move to where I really want to live. And it is further south, and much further west.

The plan right now is to prep the house for sale, sell the blue Mini, sell the 4Runner that's outside the house and hasn't been registered in 10 years, have my son take his red Mini to wherever he goes after graduation in fall, and have my daughter take her Subaru Outback to wherever she goes after graduation.

Then I'll put the house on the market (only good thing is people flock to this region during recessions because of all the government jobs), and then move to a mountain cabin area in California, hopefully all in one transaction, but renting up there is pretty easy as most cabins are empty 95% of the time. Yes, moving to expensive California can be cheaper than living here, especially if I can sell my house here and find a place that's cheaper there (today I could) and reduce or eliminate my mortgage that way. Don't need a big house, just one with room for a big shop/garage that won't cost me 30 grand to add to the place. I'll have the time to build it.

Without my current mortgage and taxes I should be able to afford food, utilities, internet, and gas, all in an area I always wanted to call home. It will be far out in the mountains, with a grocery store 5 miles down the steep mountain road. Walmart is 40 miles away, Costco 70 miles. But it's all worth it. There's cable internet up there, Amazon delivers, bears and other wildlife walk though your yard, and in summer while most of CA is cooking in the valley, it is 75F and dry up there, while in winter I can ski the 9000 foot mountain behind the cabins.

And then there is that 25 mile twisty mountain road down to the first proper city in the valley (Hwy 190 to Springville and then on to box stores in Porterville). That alone justifies keeping one Mini in the stable.

I'll likely get me a Subaru Outback for where I am moving, as I like the car, know about its quirks and have worked on it. The 6 cylinder 2010-2018 years are the ones to go for, especially if you live on a mountain top.

So this blue Mini here, the one I spent more time fixing up than driving, will be for sale as I cannot see a reason to have three cars on that mountain top where chains are mandatory in winter.

So that's the current plan here at Mini headquarters in Wisconsin.

 

Thanks for all the supportive comments. I am doing pretty good, though. Less depressed than I should be, likely because I finally get to move closer to my favorite places. Things just accelerated a lot with this virus thing tanking the economy and suddenly this is all real, or at least very likely to happen.

About selling this blue Mini - I'd rather keep it, and may very well do so if I can afford it. It is registration and insurance that will be a heavier hit when in retirement. Getting all cars there is more of an effort, but I'd drive them and take a bus back if I had to.

The real issue is that I absolutely will need a 4WD vehicle where I want to live. It is on a plowed road above a remote plowed highway, but it may be one plow run a day in a place that can get 22 feet of snow in a heavy winter (2011 it did, don't even know the 2018 data).

Here is the location I am thinking about, centered on this google map view - zoom out to have the central valley pop into view. No such roads anywhere west of Denver.
https://www.google.com/maps/@36.1838691,-118.6278061,1726m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en-US

A lot of research remains to be done. Much of my plan revolves around the availability of decent Internet connectivity at that location (work from home is basically the only way to work there. Elon Musk's Starlink service is the backup plan. I plan to head over there and check things out on site some time in June or July. It may just be a good time to test my dark silver R53 on mountain roads again, after it had massive fuel supply issues on longer uphill runs on my last cross country run in it back in 2014. New fuel pump and filter should have cured that, but no way of testing it here in flat WI.

I would love to keep both cars and tinker on them for the next 25 years. In the big picture, it's not a lot of money, but in my current financial worst case scenario, I need a second Mini like I need a hole in my head. Things are in flux, so who knows how this will unfold.

and to keep things a little on subject - here the view of the big ass UniFilter that came with the eBay DDMWorks intake. Compared here to the green filter that came with my dark silver car before I moved to DDMWorks and K&N on that one. The K&N is about the same size as this green filter. I do like the big foam filter. Washing it took a while because previous owner let the thing go far too long, but with plenty of Simple Green and hot water, I got it looking like new. Added oil and here it is, ready for a first drive in spring. Maybe this weekend. 58 and sunny!

 

I have one, maybe I should take a look in there... duh.

 

yeah - and I had a good laugh at their prices. $200 premium on the radiator core support? And that's not even knowing the shipping (RockAuto had the best price but wants $280 for FedEx ground, so I got it for 160 or so from Amazon, 2 days free). Front bumper covers are hard to find. Right now they have one for 300 bucks that needs a different paint, or the OEM for over 450. If I have to pay someone to paint my bumper cover, I'll go aero kit style and deal with the tricky install. For now, the cover is fine, it's just going to be tricky to keep that black little spoiler edge connected.

 

price is great, but like I mentioned in my PM - the real cost is painting it electric blue. At that point, the extra <$300 for an aero bumper isn't really that much, and I always liked those better. For now, the car is mothballed for the winter and I am in no hurry to get it back on the road.